Nick Szarzak

11/14/17

EDTECH 592

Reflection/Research Paper

My Journey to EdTech 2.0

Introduction

I began my current teaching position back in 2006 and since then I have been fortunate

enough to have worked with some amazing and talented educators both on my Physics

Professional Learning Community (PLC) Team and within my department. Prior to teaching I

earned my Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering, and so I was very excited to

apply my knowledge of how science is applied to developing and using technology. In my first

seven years I am proud to say that I played an integral part in building my PLCs physics

curriculum around SMART Technologies interactive whiteboards, wireless clickers, online

homework, and course websites. I will always be proud of the work accomplished by my PLC in

making our courses at the forefront of technology integration.

Then in 2013 our district announced a five-year 1:1 technology rollout plan that would

put iPads into the hands of every student, teacher and administrator in the district. I knew right

away that properly incorporating these devises into our everyday curriculum would be a

monumental challenge, but also understood the potential benefits of having such a powerful

educational technology tool in the hands of every learner would make all the hard work to come

worth embracing the challenge. As a result that same year I began coursework to earn my

Masters in Educational Technology (MET) at Boise State University and my journey to EdTech

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2.0 had begun. What follows are my reflections on the major thematic lessons learned in the

MET program and how they have fundamentally altered my everyday approach to teaching and

learning.

Lesson One: Reflections on Learning

I taught high school physics for seven years before beginning the MET program at Boise

State, and in those seven years I cannot count how many hours I spent creating a curriculum that

embraced the use of digital technology both inside and outside of the classroom. I consciously

took the approach in designing my lessons to incorporate as many features as the tools had

available to try and make my lessons as dynamic, interesting and exciting to the learner as

possible. My presentations were jam packed with embedded videos, animations, extraneous

humor and puns, multiple fonts to focus user attention, custom images and anything else I could

find to help my learners pay attention and be excited about my lessons. Although I did not know

it at the time, I was absolutely a subscriber to what Clark and Mayer (2008) referred to as

Arousal Theory, which is based on the claim that if multimedia instruction contains elements

included solely to grab the learners attention and create an emotional tie to the desired learning

outcomes, the result will be that learners will work harder to master the content presented in the

instruction.

Perhaps my biggest watershed moment in all of my coursework in the EdTech program

came in the spring of 2015 when I learned about the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.

The theory claims that learners have a limited amount of working memory that is accessed

through auditory and visual channels used to process information, and that given this constraint

learning is maximized when the cognitive load placed on the learner when engaging with

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multimedia is minimized. This frees up more working memory to be used for the processing of

instructional objectives. Clark and Mayer (2008) profoundly stated, adding interesting and

unnecessary material to e-learning can harm the learning process (p. 152). I knew that I needed

to rethink my approach to providing instruction for my learners, and for me the guiding principle

would have to be the Coherence Principle, which posits that working memory is maximized for

the processing of the instructional objectives by eliminating any extraneous words, audio, or

visuals that do not directly support pre-defined learning outcomes.

Putting theory and principle into practice for me has been an approach on two interrelated

fronts. To simply throw away everything I had worked to create for my physics courses would

be counterproductive, so instead I have since been actively engaged in what Mayer and Moreno

(2003) refer to as weeding, where words, graphics, and sounds not central to the instructional

goal of the lesson are eliminated. Simply deleting out extraneous information does not

necessarily lead to effective instruction, and so in I set about learning how to design multimedia

and select multimedia that maximizes learning.

Now when I incorporate multimedia into my lessons, those learning objects are either

created or selected because adhere to the Analyze, Create, and Evaluate (ACE) Model of design.

The function of analysis in the model according to Lohr (2008) is to make the instructional

objective clear (selection), provide well-organized and comprehensive information

(organization), and create an environment or context where the overall message and organization

are easy to understand (integration) (pg. 75). I no longer create multimedia to make personal

connections with my learners or simply to add humor. Instead, the importance of keeping

design simple is addressed in information, graphic, and message design literature for selection,

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organization, and integration principles of perception (Lohr, 2008, pg. 80). Finally, and in my

opinion most importantly, I active engage in constant evaluation of the artifacts I create for my

curriculum. Admittedly such evaluation is often done informally through user-testing with

members of my PLC before putting new multimedia into practice, or by collecting samples of

how my learners ultimately engage with the media through note taking and performance on

formative assessments. What is most important though is that such evaluation is now focused on

how well the multimedia my learners engage with adheres to the Coherence Principle to support

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.

Lesson Two: The Art & Science of Teaching

To say that my approach to teaching has changed as a result of MET program would be

an understatement. To understand the transformation I believe I have made it is necessary to

explain a little about the teacher I was prior to his program. I started teaching in 2003. Before

becoming a teacher I earned a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the

University of Illinois and as a result early on in my career I felt very comfortable with what

could be done with technology at the time due to my knowledge of hardware, software and

architecture. In terms of applying this to teaching, I took the approach of building resources with

a philosophy based more on what could be done with technology rather that what should be

done. As the years passed technology changed as it always does, and I also became more

interested in addressing how technology should be used to foster learning. As a result I selected

the MET program to both stay current with how technology is being used to foster learning and

how to maximize how I was using it.

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 In the course of completing the MET, my approach to teaching has dramatically shifted

away from primarily direct instruction to a blended approach that attempts to achieve

Constructivism. I was drawn to this learning theory very early in the program because I could

immediately see the applications of constructivist principles to the high school physics courses I

teach. I was specifically drawn to several of the principles addressed by Ertmer and Newby

(1993). Within a constructivist learning environment content must be explored in a multitude of

ways by the learner, both as a method of scaffolding and to prepare the learner to apply the

learning to new scenarios. Constructivism emphasizes problem solving approaches where the

tools and skills the learner develops are more important than the solution to any individual

problem, and the learner is evaluated on his or her ability to apply the knowledge and skills

gained to a new problem or scenario. These principles exactly describe what I wanted for my

physics students and what my expectations were for them. As a result I set about transforming

my teaching to put this theory into practice.

To achieve this goal of implementing constructivism I needed to begin by redefining both

my role as a teacher and the roll of my students as learners. Within constructivism, Anderson

and Dron state that Teachers do not merely transmit knowledge to be passively consumed by

learners; rather each learner constructs means by which new knowledge is both created and

integrated with existing knowledge (p. 3). To pull my learners out of the roll of passive

consumers, I have attempted to transform my classroom to one that embraces Self-Regulated

Learning (SRL). This type of classroom environment is one where, as stated by Zimmerman

(1986), Students are self-regulated to the degree that they are metacognitively, motivationally,

and behaviorally active participants in their learning. My instruction now embraces a flipped

classroom approach wherever and whenever possible. I have created tutorial screen casts and

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pre-lab videos that replace much of my direct instruction. These tools allow my learners to

revisit content as often as needed and customize the pace of instruction. Most importantly this

approach frees up class time for my students to spend working physics problems rather than

being instructed on how to work physics problems. This has resulted in a shift of my role as an

educator to that of an instructional coach where more of my time is spent on individualized

instruction. My learners now spend more of their time engaged in working through physics in

small group settings rather than listening to lectures. I have also incorporated activities that allow

for more student choice in their assignments such as web quests, inquiry investigations where

learners must participate in designing experiments in addition to performing them, and electronic

homework assignments that allow students to practice multiple versions of questions. I by no

means consider my journey towards achieving constructivism complete, but more importantly I

have realized in completing the MET program that this is a journey that is never intended to be

completed.

Lesson Three: The Design and Evaluation of Instruction

The greatest shift in my thinking in completing my MET coursework in terms of the

design and evaluation of instruction has been the realization that instruction design, the

implementation of instruction, and the evaluation of instruction are in fact separate entities and

need not be accomplished by the same individual. As educational technology tools make

blended learning environments conducive to asynchronous constructivist learning, recognizing

and taking advantage of these divisions becomes more essential to me as a classroom instructor.

This is not to suggest that these aspects of instruction are not related and dependent upon each

other, nor should this in any way suggest that they can be treated as mutually exclusive. In all

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my coursework in the MET, perhaps my favorite peer-reviewed sentence pertains to the design

and evaluation of instruction. As stated so eloquently by Larson and Lockee (2014), defining

the project scope is a bit like trying to nail gelatin to the wall the process tends to fall apart

frequently and requires that you return repeatedly to your analysis data to reconsider it

throughout the life of the project (p. 21). Maybe the reason this quote rings so true to me is

because as a classroom teacher in public education I feel that these three aspects of instruction

are just different hats I wear at different points throughout the school year, but regardless for me

tackling this challenge requires incorporating instruction design and evaluation to my

instructional approach.

As an instructional designer, my role is to engage with the members of my department

and PLC to improve ability to deliver education to learners by assisting in the customization of

educational technology based on specific subject matter requirements and individual staff needs.

As a classroom instructor, my job is to ensure that the educational technology created or selected

by my PLC is implemented in the manner that was intended during its design. Where I feel that I

have grown the most in terms of my instructional practice however has been in how both I and

my PLC evaluate instruction.

Prior to my coursework in the MET I rarely considered anything beyond test scores when

evaluating the level of success of my instruction. Although assessment results are still important,

evaluation is much larger and comprehensive in scope. Specifically, an inherent benefit of

evaluation of our own instructional design has been that my PLC members now frequently

engage in conversations that center on evaluation procedures (which) can act as a staging

ground for good professional discussion on the program and its processes (Boulmetis &

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Dutwin, 2011, p. 34). These conversations have forced us to take a hard look at why we make

the instructional choices we make, as well as analyze whether or not our instructional designs are

successful in meeting their goals. In the plainest of terms, "Evaluation enables accountability"

(Boulmetis & Dutwin, 2011, p. 38), and by making evaluation part of the instructional design

process my PLC team is achieving a whole new level of accountability that ultimately benefits

our learners.

Lesson Four: Networking and Collaboration

The ways in which I network and collaborate has undergone quite a shift since beginning

the MET at Boise State. From a theoretical context, learning about Connectivism has probably

had the most dramatic influence on my approach to how I network with my peers. Connectivist

Theory contends that learning itself exists in a learning network comprised of connected nodes.

Nodes are areas where opinions and discussions happen about some piece of learning, topic or

information. Rather than acquiring knowledge, the learners job is to become proficient at

navigating through these nodes and networks, using existing connections, and then drawing their

own conclusions. This process of navigating networks creates a cyclical learning process where

connections are not only made to acquire knowledge, but as stated by Kop and Hill (2008),

learners will connect to a network to share and find new information, will modify their beliefs

on the basis of new learning, and will thenshare these realizations and find new information

once more (p 2).

In terms of how this has altered my professional practice, the most relevant example

would have to be how I engage with Physics West (PW). This Professional Learning Network

(PLN) consists of physics and physical science teachers at the high school, middle school, and

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college level located in and around the western suburbs of Chicago. The group meets monthly at

a host school to discuss teaching methods, lecture and lab demonstrations, and teaching

techniques. In addition, once a year our PLN participates in a tri-meeting with Physics

Northwest (PNW) and the Illinois State Physics Project (ISPP). These are two other PLNs with

similar purposes, but that cover different geographic areas. When I began the MET program,

teachers who would present at meetings would summarize their presentations on hand-written

note cards. The host of that months meeting would use these cards to type up static meeting

minutes that would occasionally be shared using an email list, and any collaboration between

PW, PNW and ISPP rarely extended beyond our annual meeting.

Our approach to sharing and collaboration has shifted dramatically as I have progressed

through the MET program. PW has replaced hand written note cards and meeting minutes with

basic Google suite apps. Each meeting now has an associated Google Doc. This software was

chosen because word processing is universally considered model free instructional software in

that it reflects no particular instructional approach. A teacher can use it to support any directed

instruction or constructivist activity (Roblyer, 2016, p.114). Presenters now take the

responsibility of entering in summaries and resources pertaining to their presentations, and

Google Docs allows us to include images and links to related videos as well. Additionally,

members can add comments and suggestions to the entries regardless of whether or not they

were able to attend a meeting, and thus our collaboration is no longer a static record of meeting

minutes, but a living document to which all members can access and contribute. In addition,

Physics West is able to share these Google Docs with PNW and ISPP, thus expanding the reach

of our PLN beyond an annual collaboration.

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 This shift in collaborative approach has absolutely had a profound effect on my own

instruction. Whereas before I would attend PW meetings to get ideas for new demonstrations or

ways to conduct laboratory investigations, now I view this PLN as a resource to redefine how I

deliver content to my learners. Specifically, my collaboration with PW has resulted in the

implementation of video pre-labs that have associated online assignments that learners must

complete prior to beginning a laboratory investigation in class. The videos are warehoused on

my physics PLC YouTube channel and embedded within online homework assignments. This

approach has made implementing a flipped classroom model a reality, and was a direct result of

collaboration that took place over several PW meetings with an ongoing exchange of ideas

taking place on a shared Google Doc between several physics teachers spread across the

Chicago-land area.

Lesson Five: The Research-Practice Connection

Prior to enrolling in the MET program it had already become clear to me as classroom

teacher that my profession had become dominated by a top down approach to management. In

todays public education landscape research into best practice based upon accepted

contemporary learning theories drives decision making at the national, state and district level.

As an educator and district employee I must adhere to these decisions or risk losing my job. The

most prominent initiative in my district in the past five years has been our transition to 1:1

technology with iPads along with the districts push to achieve constructivism through the

application of the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR)

technology integration model. Simply putting the devices into the hands of teachers and learners

does not lead to a paradigm shift, rather educational technology must be leveraged to provide

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engaging and powerful learning experiences and content, as well as resources and assessments

that measure student achievement in more complete, authentic, and meaningful ways (U.S.

Department of Education Office of Educational Technology, 2010, p.7). Taking the time to

study educational research is necessary if I hope to understand the decisions that are passed

down to me from above. The power and capabilities of todays educational technology is simply

too vast and changes too quickly to hope that a fundamental shift in how education is delivered

to learners will occur through trial and error alone. I have the obligation to understand the

theories driving decisions if I ever hope to implement such praxis into my daily lessons, and it is

in this regard that the lessons I have learned in the MET apply to my everyday instruction.

My approach to educational technology as result of what I have learned regarding

constructivism has all been about designing to put the learning in the hands of the students.

Rather than build artifacts to help me deliver content, my goal now is to generate technology

tools that allow the leaner to actively engage with the tools for the purpose of knowledge

transfer. One of my proudest examples of this is in the Photo-Essay WebQuest I designed in

EdTech 502 that guides learners in conducting research into learning about physics,

photography, writing a conceptual essay, and submitting an official entry into a national contest

sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers. Since the initial inception of the

WebQuest, I have expanded the resources available to my learners using the science and math

resources I researched and reviewed in EdTech 541. These resources became part of the

WebQuest because they allow learners to explore a wide range of physics topics, are

scientifically valid and present information in a manner appropriate for high school physics

students. The WebQuest model is an effective strategy supported by research that I now use to

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implement constructivism in my classroom, with the implementation of 1:1 technology

functioning to streamline the application of the model.

I must admit that prior to the MET program I had genuine fears that a movement was

taking place in this country to use technology to marginalize teachers and force us into a position

where we would function as little more than teaching assistants. I am both delighted and

relieved that my journey has quelled those fears by teaching me that Educational technologists

are considered change agents and the focus of Educational Technology includes the possibility of

effecting major changes in society by transforming educational systems and practices

(Luppicini, 2005, p.106). Granted, this role comes with the responsibility of being both current

knowledgeable of educational research. My coursework in the MET has given me the necessary

skills to connect research and theory into practice, thus allowing me to transform my teaching to

embrace a constructivist learning environment and a redefinition of my instruction through

educational technology.

Closing Thoughts

As I try to reflect in all I have learned in the past four years in the MET program I realize

I am a very different teacher as a result of completing this program. The way I design and

implement instruction has a completely different philosophical approach that has forced me to

modify or replace much of what I had created prior to starting the program. Though this has

been a monumental undertaking I am grateful, for I believe I am a better teacher for it. The

members of my department and PLC see me as an innovator and a leader in the realm of

educational technology, and I am excited to continue to apply all that I have learned because I

know my instruction and therefore my students are benefiting from my experience in the MET.

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References

Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. The

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(3). Retrieved

from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890/1663

Boulmetis, J., & Dutwin, P. (2011). The ABCs of evaluation: Timeless techniques for program

and project managers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). E-learning and the science of instruction (2nd ed.). Pfeiffer:

San Francisco, CA.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing

critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement

quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.

Kop, R., & Hill, A. 2008. Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? The

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3). Retrieved from

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/523/1137

Larson, M.B., & Lockee, B.B. (2014). Streamline ID: A practical guide to instructional

design. New York, NY: Routledge.

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River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Luppicini, R. (2005). A Systems Definition of Educational Technology in Society.

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Mayer, R.E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia

learning. Educational Psychologist, 38, 4352.

Roblyer, M. D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th ed.). Boston,

MA: Pearson

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Zimmerman, B. J. (1986). Becoming a self-regulated learner: Which are the key sub-

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